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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25807492">every night i burn</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink_Beneath_Her_Fingernails/pseuds/Ink_Beneath_Her_Fingernails'>Ink_Beneath_Her_Fingernails</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blanket Permission, Dark, Families of Choice, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, No Plot/Plotless, Podfic Welcome, Post-Apocalypse, Self-Indulgent, Sozin's Comet, Team as Family, also i love them therefore i make them sad, also: they get more friends, and even if this wasn't a post-apocalyptic world, bc no one ever writes them and i am getting deprived of content, ft. Introspection™ bc i have Thoughts™ and Feelings™ about some of the things that happened ok, no i don't care that they separated, that shit would still be with them :), these kids have seen and dealt with horrifying things :), we're getting the full western air temple gaang in here, we're ignoring that</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:13:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,271</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25807492</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink_Beneath_Her_Fingernails/pseuds/Ink_Beneath_Her_Fingernails</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Jet’s not here because Jet is dead, </em>she doesn’t say.<em> Jet’s not here because he tried to do the right thing and he tried to help you and all it got him was a body we couldn’t bury beneath a lake no one knows the name of anymore in a kingdom that’s been burned to ashes.</em></p>
<p><em>Jet’s not here, </em>she says.<em> But we are.</em></p>
<p>(Or: The Comet comes, the Comet goes.</p>
<p>In the end, the world goes with it.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aang &amp; The Gaang (Avatar), Everyone &amp; Everyone, Freedom Fighters &amp; The Gaang, Mai &amp; Ty Lee &amp; Zuko</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>57</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>every night i burn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/570738">A Glass Darkly</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/AzarDarkstar/pseuds/AzarDarkstar">AzarDarkstar</a>.
        </li>
        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/21284915">Choke On Your Own Ashes</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haicrescendo/pseuds/Haicrescendo">Haicrescendo</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><strong>TW:</strong> major off-screen character death, non-graphic vomiting</p>
<p>
  <strong>please let me know if there are any other warnings that you would like me to tag.</strong>
</p>
<p>so I spent the day binging hearts’ fics and all of sudden had no idea why I never wrote an everything-is-screwed atla ending au</p>
<p>also post-apocalyptic fluff was supposed to be in here somewhere bc that was the main tipping point but... I don’t know how successful that endeavor was...</p>
<p>this is such a vague au with like barely comprehensible connections between short scenes tbh so I apologize for that and thank you for bearing with it &lt;3</p>
<p>also ft. my rambling also ft. The Swamp</p>
<p>title is part of a line from <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/9618515/chapters/21730547#workskin">No Home for Dead Birds</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintersnight/pseuds/wintersnight">wintersnight</a></p>
<p>(the line is “<em>(Every night I burn / Waiting for the world to end)</em>” from chapter 2, part III)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If someone were to ask, a second, a minute, a month, a year down the line, Aang isn’t sure he’d ever be able to explain it to them.</p>
<p>If they were ever able to get to a point where history books were a thing again, he’s honestly not sure how the events that had taken place would be written.</p>
<p>As it was, there were very few things he could say for certain that would make any sense to anybody who had not witnessed it all for themselves, and they were as follows:</p>
<p>1. The Phoenix King is dead, and so is his daughter.</p>
<p>2. The day of the Comet did not go as planned, not for anyone.</p>
<p>And last but not least, 3. The world as they knew it is gone.</p>
<p>A new one has, indeed, risen from the ashes.</p>
<p>The King who had deemed such a thing necessary was not there to see its rebirth, because he is lying with the rest of his nation and the old world—dead. There are no victors here, no rulers.</p>
<p>(4. Rebirth is not always a pretty thing. To get there, something else has to die, first.)</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Only justice can bring peace</em>, Kyoshi had said.</p>
<p>But Ozai hadn’t gotten <em>justice</em>. He’d only died.</p>
<p>And they might not be at war anymore, but whatever the hell this is, it’s a far, far cry from peace.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>"Where are we going?" Zuko asks.</p>
<p>"I don't know," Aang says.</p>
<p>There's nowhere <em>to</em> go.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Sometimes Aang wonders if they're supposed to be running <em>to</em> or <em>from</em> something.</p>
<p>It doesn't seem like any of them really know.</p>
<p>It took them less than a year to practically travel the whole world over.</p>
<p>Zuko had had three.</p>
<p>But the world is a big place.</p>
<p>He's sure they'll find something, eventually.</p>
<p>They have to.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>They run into Smellerbee and Longshot somewhere near where Omashu used to be. (<em>Used to be</em>, because it’s not there <em>anymore</em>.</p>
<p>No mountains, no mail shutes, no scaffolding or secret refugee camps, nothing. Just—completely—<em>gone</em>.</p>
<p>The word <em>obliterated</em> comes to mind, but it feels overused these days.</p>
<p>And the thing is, thinking about Tom-Tom, and the generals they worked with, and Mai’s parents that may or may not have still been there as prisoners or something, and the civilians they had helped evacuate that all would have come <em>back</em> after the eclipse—</p>
<p>Aang wants to believe that Bumi did something. He wants to believe that these people got <em>out</em>, that they were <em>saved</em>, that their King had a plan and it included all of them, too. He wants to believe that there are more secret tunnels, or underground bunkers built, or <em>something</em>.</p>
<p>But it’s been one hundred years since the Bumi he knew was alive. <em>This</em> Bumi saw his city under siege, under fire, under terror, and did <em>nothing</em>. This Bumi had actually <em>laughed</em> in the face of it <em>and then did nothing</em>.</p>
<p>This Bumi had <em>surrendered</em>. This Bumi had <em>let himself be captured</em>. This Bumi had watched his people be conquered and terrorized and oppressed, and just <em>waited</em> for <em>months</em>. This Bumi was given the <em>perfect opportunity</em> to escape and lead his people in freedom, and <em>went back</em>.</p>
<p>And yeah, maybe it had all worked out in the end. Maybe he’d been able to take his whole city back by himself. Maybe this Bumi doing all those things saved a lot of lives and a lot of damage, in the end.</p>
<p>But Bumi’s mind works on so many levels Aang sometimes thinks he skips a few without even realizing it.</p>
<p>Because if he’s being honest with himself, Aang’s not even sure Bumi ever realized what that all had <em>done</em> to Omashu, if he ever realized just how much their <em>King</em>, one of the most <em>powerful benders in the world</em>, <em>surrendering on sight </em>had <em>terrified </em>them, wonders if he knows just how much their morale dropped, how unmoored they were without their leader, how <em>hopeless</em> things had seemed to them, how <em>crushed</em> they had all been when it got out to the general population how it was that their city fell so quickly, that their King could’ve escaped and come back to them at <em>any time</em> and <em>didn’t</em>.</p>
<p>So he’s not really sure what <em>this Bumi</em> would have done, or what the consequences of it would have been.</p>
<p>And. Bumi’s a genius—a mad one, yes, but still a genius.</p>
<p>But even he couldn’t have predicted the day of the Comet going to hell in quite the way it did. No one could have.</p>
<p>And Bumi was all the way in Ba Sing Se then, anyway, according to the others.</p>
<p>Aang doesn’t think there’s any secret tunnels or underground bunkers. Aang doesn’t think Bumi could’ve done anything at all.)</p>
<p>Surprisingly, neither of them object to Zuko’s presence.</p>
<p>“How can we?” Smellerbee asks when someone finally works up the guts to say something about it. And it’s—strange. There’s no fire in her voice (<em>ha</em>), no bite, just something reminiscent of defeat. It reminds Aang of the last time they saw her, of Lake Laogi, of standing over a dying man and being told to <em>go</em>. It does not sound much like her at all, and even after all the horrors of the past few—months, years, spirits sometimes it feels like centuries—it still scares him. “It’s not us against the Fire Nation anymore. They’re gone, too. It’s just the world against everyone in it.”</p>
<p>“...I don’t think I know if Jet would agree with that,” Katara says, carefully.</p>
<p>She looks like she doesn’t even know what she’s saying, why she’s defending the rhetoric of a deranged martyr that they’ve all already established she doesn’t agree with even if she might’ve loved him just a little bit (loved the idea, loved the lie, barely knew the person behind them); looks like she doesn’t know why she’s pushing it, why she’s provoking them, why her voice is cautious but her words were picked to start a fight that might end in tears and might end in blood and might end in separation and might just end in flames like so many things do these days.</p>
<p>That’s okay, though. No one really knows what they’re doing anymore, not even her.</p>
<p>Smellerbee just sighs, like she’s tired, like she’s carrying her whole ruined nation on her shoulders and hasn’t been able to set it down since all those years ago in a Ba Sing Se that was still whole.</p>
<p>Maybe she is; maybe she hasn’t.</p>
<p>“What Jet would think doesn’t matter anymore. Jet’s not here. A lot of people aren’t. We are.”</p>
<p><em>Jet’s not here because Jet is dead, </em>she doesn’t say. <em>Jet’s not here because he tried to do the right thing and he tried to help you and all it got him was a body we couldn’t bury beneath a lake no one knows the name of anymore in a kingdom that’s been burned to ashes.</em></p>
<p><em>Jet’s not here,</em> she says. <em>But we are.</em></p>
<p>(One more thing she doesn’t say: <em>not for much longer.</em>)</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Aang remembers making comments when Toph joined them, things he regrets, when they were all tired and angry, about how Appa hadn't had any problems carrying them all before she joined. He's still sorry, and he's still glad she came back.</p>
<p>He's never going to make those comments again.</p>
<p>But it doesn't mean they don't hold a kernel of truth.</p>
<p>Because Appa doesn't have any trouble carrying them, not really, not in the short term.</p>
<p>But those hours and hours and days and days of straight flying are no more. There are a lot more of them now. So many. And like it or not, eventually all that adds up, even for Appa.</p>
<p>Eleven people and a wheelchair and armor and weapons and all their supplies weigh a lot, and soon they have to start making camp every night if they want to give Appa a break. It's worse now than it ever was with Azula and her friends chasing them.</p>
<p>(But Azula's friends aren't really her friends anymore, are they? Because they're probably dead and Azula <em>definitely </em>is, and either way, Mai betrayed her at the Boiling Rock, by helping the others escape.</p>
<p>And she was alone when she showed up at the Air Temple.</p>
<p>Zuko says he doesn't think Ty Lee would've stayed with Azula long, if Mai left, if pressed, if she had to <em>choose</em>. He says that she didn't have much of a choice in the first place, that she was a lot smarter than she seemed or she would've never survived a day by Azula's side, that half of her motivation was self-preservation and to save the members of her circus troupe, because Azula wouldn't have stopped with setting nets on fire and endangering all the troupe members and all the animals by setting the latter loose all at once.</p>
<p>And Mai <em>had</em> left, hadn't she?</p>
<p>Because she'd saved them.</p>
<p>Because—</p>
<p><em>Why</em> had she done that?</p>
<p>Aang doesn't really know Mai at all, only even knew her name before Zuko joined them because Azula had mentioned it at the negotiations in Omashu. And—Aang really wants to believe in the goodness of people, always has, and maybe if he still really did, he'd say it's because she had a change of heart and decided to do the right thing to help the world and the people in it, that somehow, Zuko and Suki and Sokka and Hakoda and Chit Sang managed to appeal to her sense of empathy enough that she'd betray not only her best and only friends, but her own family.</p>
<p>("<em>The Warden is her uncle</em>," Zuko had whispered when they were telling the story, as if he couldn't believe it. None of them could. Because—blood family isn't everything, Aang knows that better than anyone, but it's not <em>nothing</em>, either, not even to Mai. Whether it's not nothing in a good way or a bad way or a barely-even-acknowledged-or-cared-about way doesn't matter.</p>
<p>Regardless, she'd have to know that the results and backlash would be <em>severe</em>.</p>
<p>That wasn't just ruining her uncle's reputation, it was associating her entire family—a <em>toddler</em>, it was determining the fate of an <em>innocent toddler</em>—with a traitor to the state, and pissing off Azula herself, <em>directly</em>, which is dangerous enough already no matter <em>who</em> you are.</p>
<p>And maybe it was because Zuko had known her for practically ever, because he knew that for her <em>family</em>, she'd repressed so much of herself, that for her <em>family</em> and the desperate, hopeful gleam in a little girl's eyes, when Azula had asked if she wanted to be friends, she'd said <em>yes</em>, even when that included Ty Lee and Zuko, too. Maybe it was because he knew that she'd always done everything in her life for Azula and Ty Lee and Zuko and her family, and never anything for herself, definitely never anything <em>against</em> any of them if she could help it.</p>
<p>There was always a hierarchy, and she knew how hers stacked up.)</p>
<p>Yeah, Aang wants to believe the best in people.</p>
<p>But ever since he's gotten out of the ice, that mindset has been severely tested.</p>
<p>He's been tricked and betrayed and attacked without provocation. He's been subjected to corrupt court systems and governments, been held accountable for circumstances out of his control, past lives he had no say in. He's hurt people, and though he never meant to, he's killed them.</p>
<p>If he can no longer believe the best in himself, how could he ever believe the best in everyone else?</p>
<p>And it's not like Mai is a saint. She was one of those people following him, attacking him, his friends. She didn't help Aang out of the goodness of her heart, she helped Zuko and the people he happened to be with for some reason Aang can't for the life of him discern.</p>
<p>Spirits, it might even be just because it was the most convenient way she could think of to set back Azula. Maybe she'd been planning her betrayal—defection—<em>whatever</em> for a while, and was just waiting for the most opportune moment.</p>
<p>The point is, he's not sure how he feels about Mai, but she saved his friends, and if nothing else, he'd owe her that.</p>
<p>And if Ty Lee had abandoned Azula, maybe she'd helped Mai at some point, and he'd owe her, too, by extension.</p>
<p>Whatever the case, even if they weren't all dead, Azula would be alone.)</p>
<p>(He doesn't think about how ruthless everyone said Azula could be. He doesn't think about how they have no idea what happened in between the Boiling Rock and the Western Air Temple and the day of the Comet, just that the two girls disappeared somewhere between them.</p>
<p>He doesn't think about how they might not have lived long enough for the Comet to kill them.)</p>
<p>(Zuko says Azula is ruthless, too.</p>
<p>But he also says he doesn't think she's ever killed anyone herself before.</p>
<p>But half of their group would probably say the same thing about Aang, wouldn't they?)</p>
<p>Appa tires easily now, with such a heavy load.</p>
<p>It's okay, though. It can be inconvenient sometimes, but for the most part, it just gives them more excuses and opportunities to search for survivors and supplies, or maybe somewhere they could stay permanently.</p>
<p>(Staying somewhere permanently.</p>
<p>What a novel thought.)</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>"What day is it?" Haru asks.</p>
<p>"I don't know," Aang says.</p>
<p>He's lost track of the days.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>"Are you alright?"</p>
<p>Zuko's brooding again.</p>
<p>"Yes," he answers.</p>
<p>Aang just stares at him. (And he's only judging a <em>little</em> bit, honest.)</p>
<p>"...No," he mutters.</p>
<p><em>Better</em>, Aang thinks, and takes a seat next to him.</p>
<p>He and Katara have been working on getting the others to express their emotions better. (<em>Too little, too late</em>. That doesn't matter much anymore.)</p>
<p>The others don't exactly <em>know</em> about this, but they're making pretty good progress nonetheless, if Aang says so himself.</p>
<p>Aang doesn't say anything, because getting Zuko to admit that he's not quite okay is one thing, but getting him to discuss what's bothering him is an entirely different matter, and that's really not for him to push for or decide.</p>
<p>For a while, they just sit in silence, looking over the valley that they've camped near this time.</p>
<p>Even if Zuko doesn't want to talk, that doesn't mean Aang can't be there for him.</p>
<p>And if he wants Aang gone?</p>
<p>He'll go.</p>
<p>Aang breathes in deeply.</p>
<p>It's a beautiful night. Dusk was always one of his favorite times.</p>
<p>The others are all settled at their camp, a little further down, soft voices and laughter and shouting, punctuated by the occasional argument, the clang of weaponry, and crash or splash of bending all amplified and echoing just a bit more than they should in the valley.</p>
<p>The kinglet-crickets are starting to come out, their rhythmic chirping all growing into a cheerful white noise.</p>
<p>Eventually, Zuko speaks.</p>
<p>"It's just—" Zuko doesn't look at Aang and he doesn't look at Zuko, but he can practically feel the desperation the firebender is radiating with the shuddering breath that cuts him off. He licks his lips, and finishes, "Mai and Ty Lee. Do you think they're still alive?"</p>
<p>Aang doesn't even know if there <em>is</em> a safe way to answer that question. He suddenly wishes he hadn't asked.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>They make their way South.</p>
<p>While the Southern Water Tribe has, historically, been more vocal and proactive in these matters than their counterpart, the Water Tribes in general have been a relatively neutral party until fairly recently, in the grand scheme of the war—or, rather, quietly choosing sides and otherwise refraining from acting outright unprovoked, even in the face of all the aggression and action against them, weathering it like the tides they know, waiting for it to fade in the face of their inaction, only really getting involved in the last few decades.</p>
<p>The Southern Water Tribe is small, these days, and well-hidden to outsiders. It’s isolated by design, relatively far from civilization elsewhere (unless you happened to have a flying bison), and while the men may have gone to war and so too did the Chief’s children, the women and kids and elderly have not. In the midst of doomsday, no one would have spared armed forces for such a tiny target filled with non-bender civilians that are of no value and no threat to them.</p>
<p>There is—</p>
<p>There was—</p>
<p>There may be—</p>
<p>But there isn’t.</p>
<p>“There’s nothing for us here,” Katara says, and her voice is just as blank as her face, as blank as Sokka’s, the only thing giving her away being the slight tremble it carries, barely there, that no one will acknowledge.</p>
<p>And—she’s right.</p>
<p>Spirits, she’s right.</p>
<p>And it’s a terrifying, terrifying thing.</p>
<p>(And—this is not right. Katara is not supposed to be so...<em>indifferent</em>, whether it’s a show or not.</p>
<p>Katara is the ocean, lives and breathes its waves and <em>feels</em> just as volatile.</p>
<p>She’s supposed to rage and scream and sob and start a blizzard and make tears freeze on her face and give them all concern for their safety and concern for her and why she’s <em>feeling</em> so <em>violently</em>, and she contains that for no one.</p>
<p>She, of all of them, is supposed to wear her heart on her sleeve, use the fractures it gains and whittle them into her sharpest weapons but choose to keep it there even after she gets hurt again and again and <em>again</em>.</p>
<p>She is not supposed to just stand there, and say nothing, and do nothing.</p>
<p>It is... worrisome.)</p>
<p>(It is far, far more than worrisome, and he doesn’t know how to voice it.)</p>
<p>The world around them is deathly still, scarily silent.</p>
<p>It’s something that he’s started getting used to, in this new world.</p>
<p>Any bodies that might’ve survived whatever happened here relatively intact are long gone.</p>
<p>Food is scarce, at the poles, and survival is harsh, is no joke, is no game, takes no mercy and no prisoners.</p>
<p>
  <em>(Animals need to eat, too.)</em>
</p>
<p>He looks at the barren wasteland surrounding them—the ruins of igloos and tents, half-buried in snow from the last blizzard that blew through with no one to clean up after, fire pits destroyed, ashes mixing with soot and icy, old blood still scattered about in the places that have remained relatively untouched by the wind and snow—and can see in his mind’s eye the thriving little center of life that it was supposed to be, superimposed over it all.</p>
<p>He looks at the place that his two best friends used to call <em>home</em> and thinks back to before all this started, to how simple it all was back then, how innocent. He thinks back to the little kids, none of them even tall enough to come up to his waist, begging him to show them airbending and ‘magic tricks,’ to Katara’s giggling and Sokka’s griping over the lost time and the damage his snow tower kept taking. He thinks back to <em>call me Gran-Gran</em> and <em>Aang don’t go, I’ll miss you</em> and <em>will you go penguin sledding with me</em> and even <em>we have to fight these people wherever they are</em>.</p>
<p>The giant crack in the ice from where Zuko careened in with his battleship still hasn’t healed; looks bigger, looks sharper. Half the glaciers surrounding them are in smaller pieces than they were before.</p>
<p>He wonders if that was Pakku, if the old master came back from whatever the hell went down in Ba Sing Se proper and found his new tribe and the love of his life (love of his life, love of his life, how can somebody be the <em>love</em> of your <em>life</em> if they run away from you, if you’re the reason they leave all their friends and their family and their entire own home and nation behind, and you don’t even realize it? Don’t try to? Don’t take any steps to fix it until decades later because a little girl had to literally slap some sense into you? Maybe that was why he never tried to follow her, <em>before</em>. But Pakku, Pakku, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to like Pakku, understand Pakku, forget, forgive, even though neither of those things are really his to do) slaughtered, and unleashed a force of rage and grief so devastating it leveled literal forces of nature, blasted off half the cliff-face. He wouldn’t know—he hasn’t seen Pakku since they separated at the North Pole, but the others say they met with him and the other masters—the other <em>White Lotus</em> members—just before the Comet, when they were still looking for him, still trying to come up with a plan. They said he went to reclaim Ba Sing Se with the others.</p>
<p>But Ba Sing Se fell anyway, and they haven’t seen any of the Lotus members since. If Pakku lived to see what happened, they’ll probably never know. If Pakku is still alive, then he’s in the wind, and they might never find him.</p>
<p>His thoughts wander to Bato, wondering if he ever did make it back for even a day, if he ever saw Hakoda again after they were separated in wake of the invasion, if that arm is still the worst of his injuries, if he’s still around to care about any of this.</p>
<p>And, before he can stop himself, he thinks about Hama.</p>
<p>He wonders what she would think, if she could see this. He wonders what she <em>did</em> think, at the end of the world; wonders if she even realized it was happening or what had caused it.</p>
<p><em>We have to fight these people wherever they are, however we can,</em> he recalls, and—Aang knows that’s not true, knows that’s not right, knows that what she was doing was <em>wrong</em> and that that woman broke some part of Katara for good, but—</p>
<p>He can’t help but ask himself if this would have still happened if they’d <em>let</em> her. If they’d taken her advice and <em>not held back</em>. If they’d allowed personal morals and values and beliefs to fall by the wayside in the name of a brighter future, if they’d allowed all those lines they’d drawn in the sand to be utterly destroyed.</p>
<p>It goes against everything he knows, everything he believes, everything he’s been taught, but still—</p>
<p>He can't—</p>
<p>It just—</p>
<p>He still can't help but <em>wonder</em>.</p>
<p>And that’s probably the most horrifying part of it all.</p>
<p>(He hates that he wasn’t even her student but even now, she’s getting to him.</p>
<p>Even now, <em>she’s won</em>.)</p>
<p>Suki’s hand on Sokka’s shoulder tightens, but he shows no signs of recognition.</p>
<p>“Let’s split up,” she whispers, and in this dead, empty place, it’s deafening, like a barrel of blasting jelly being blown sky-high right next to them. “Look for supplies.”</p>
<p>Slowly, they do.</p>
<p>They pick through what’s left of an entire culture, taking what they can still use. (It is sickeningly similar to their time at the Western Air Temple, just with fewer skeletons and a fresher massacre.)</p>
<p>Toph clings to Aang because even if there is solid ground somewhere far below, it’s so covered by centuries of ice and snow that she can’t see a thing (not to mention the boots they eventually managed to wrangle on her so she wouldn’t get frostbite from walking around barefoot—she rather needs her feet, and she’s missing enough toes as it is. And she <em>is</em> blind, she’s not exactly a total stranger to not having her seismic sense to navigate, but this isn’t the same thing as just sitting down on Appa for a few hours, and the adjustment period between seismic sense and no seismic sense is always a short-enough-but-still-feels-way-too-long sort of hell in re-learning, especially with how slick some areas here are, even if there was a few hours of in-between because of the ride with Appa), and he needs her to hold him down or this—here—he won’t be able to stop himself from ripping out his glider and taking to the skies, for running away for the second—third—fourth—fifth—<em>sixth</em> time.</p>
<p>There’s a pair of spark-rocks that he takes, a significant looking, half-finished carved bead that he doesn’t.</p>
<p>Haru and The Duke find some preserves that miraculously no animals had gotten to, Smellerbee and Longshot find a tarp and some smaller weapons in various conditions, Suki and Zuko find a little animal fat that Longshot can use for his bowstring, and some rope that might be handy down the line. None of them want to test Teo’s luck with his wheelchair in the ice and snow, and with nothing to keep them there it’s unlikely they’ll stay for very long anyway—a few hours at most, probably—so he stays on Appa and organizes and packs away their findings as they bring them back.</p>
<p>Katara and Sokka come back with blankets, coats, and a haunted look in their eyes. (They each throw up at least twice before they’re finally finished setting up the camp that night.)</p>
<p>Aang can’t help but liken it to what had been the second stop on their journey all that time ago, just after what this place used to be, can’t help but see weeds growing between flagstones, empty courtyards and faded, chipped old statues and paintings and mosaics, and piles and piles of armor and skeletons and dust and <em>Gyatso</em>.</p>
<p>The others hadn’t been expecting any of this, and on some level, neither had he.</p>
<p>But it’s different, because he <em>knew</em> in a way that they didn’t—knew that this could happen, that it was all too real of a possibility, that their enemies wouldn’t hesitate, wouldn’t care, because they’d already done it once before.</p>
<p>The others knew it, too, but not like Aang did. It’s impossible to really prepare for something like this until you’re face-to-face with that carnage yourself, to your own home, your own people, your own culture. (And it’s one thing, really, to know that the place and people and practices that you call home are in ruins, are barely hanging on, scattered to oblivion, struggling to survive—and another thing entirely, to know that they are just gone. That they have no chance at all anymore, no hope.)</p>
<p>But Aang—</p>
<p>Aang had made a <em>promise</em>.</p>
<p>Maybe not aloud, maybe not to anyone who was still around or still cared or could actually hear him, but he <em>did</em>.</p>
<p>This is what he was supposed to <em>stop</em>. There was never meant to be another <em>airbender</em> situation—he’d promised, he’d <em>sworn</em> that there wouldn’t be, that they would be the last ones in a line that never even should’ve started, that he would carry on the legacy of his people by way of <em>protection</em>, that he would honor them by making sure that they were a singular event, that there was never a <em>repeat</em>—that he wouldn’t let something like that happen to anyone else, not again.</p>
<p>But now most of the world is halfway there, and the Southern Water Tribe already is. And he did nothing.</p>
<p>This was never supposed to happen.</p>
<p>
  <em>He was supposed to stop this.</em>
</p>
<p>(Sokka and Katara aren’t the only ones to lose their stomachs that night. He just waits for everyone else to fall asleep before doing so.)</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>"It's winter," The Duke notes.</p>
<p>"I know," Aang says.</p>
<p>"I think the anniversary of my birth has passed," The Duke tells him.</p>
<p>Aang stays quiet.</p>
<p>He hadn't known that.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Aang wakes to Zuko’s voice, quiet and hoarse and not meant for his ears.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” he says, and it comes out something like a stifled sob.</p>
<p>Discretely, Aang checks the rest of their little group, brows furrowing. No one else is awake.</p>
<p>“I took your name and your face and I couldn’t even—” the firebender cuts himself off with another choked sob.</p>
<p>Aang swallows. He doesn’t know what this is, or who his friend is talking to, but this is not for him to hear. (Who is Zuko talking to?)</p>
<p>(<em>Took your name and your face</em> and <em>it’s been a long time since I’ve added a child’s face to my collec</em>—</p>
<p>Before he even realizes what he’s doing, he’s forcing his expression blank.</p>
<p>His hand tightens uneasily, clutching at his own throat, like he could use it to pull the mask down and keep it there.)</p>
<p>“I’m <em>sorry</em>,” Zuko repeats after a moment, but it’s a wisp of a thing, this time. “I couldn’t do anything. I tried. <em>Agni</em>, I tried. But your people still suffered.”</p>
<p>A moment of silence, before—</p>
<p>“I don’t deserve to wear your colors. I’m sorry I ever tried to. I’m sorry I took up that mantle ever thinking I could live up to it. I’m sorry I failed.”</p>
<p>There’s another long, long quiet moment, where nothing moves, and the only sounds belong to his slumbering friends and Zuko’s own heavy breathing.</p>
<p>Aang thinks Zuko apologizes a lot. Too much. (Wonders if that was <em>taught</em> or <em>learned</em> because with a childhood like what he’s beginning to see Zuko’s was like, those are two <em>very</em> different things and they do not always go hand-in-hand.)</p>
<p>He swallows again and thinks that no, no he really should not be listening to this at all, but he can’t stop now, can’t go back to sleep for the life of him, and there’s nothing to tune the words out with.</p>
<p>Then, finally, Zuko speaks again, and something like understanding slots into place.</p>
<p>“I never deserved to be the Blue Spirit. I never meant to be.”</p>
<p>(No one says anything for the rest of the night, and Aang finds that even long after Zuko stops moving again, sleep will not come to him.</p>
<p>The Blue Spirit isn’t just a persona, he remembers. The mask came from somewhere. The name came from somewhere.</p>
<p>The Blue Spirit doesn’t have a name, that moniker being the only one it possesses, but the legends and belief surrounding it are real enough, however small of a following or little-known it may be.</p>
<p>The Water Tribes claim it, the Earth Kingdom claims it.</p>
<p>Not all of them, not most, but some.</p>
<p>And that’s enough.)</p>
<p>(He didn’t see anything.</p>
<p>Zuko was the only other one there, awake.</p>
<p>This means nothing.</p>
<p>Spirits have always only ever deigned to show themselves to those they choose.)</p>
<p>(The next day, whether the spirit was ever really there or not, Zuko says nothing of the incident.)</p>
<p>(Aang realizes that he had heard of the Blue Spirit’s champion while they were traveling the Earth Kingdom, when it was still standing, and that he has not heard nor seen heads or tails of it since.)</p>
<p>(He barely keeps himself from asking what Zuko did to the mask.)</p>
<p>(He barely keeps himself from asking what Zuko did to that part of himself, too.</p>
<p>He’s not sure he wants to know the answer.)</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>"How old are you, anyway?" Smellerbee asks him. She's looking at him carefully, like she sometimes looks at The Duke and lately Toph, too, when she lets her guard down enough. Like she thinks he's fragile, like she's a little in awe of him. Like he's some wonderful tiny creature that she desperately wants to protect but is terrified of being to the one to break.</p>
<p>He wonders if she used to look at all of the younger Freedom Fighters this way.</p>
<p>And he's twelve—one hundred—thirteen—too young—too old—not enough—</p>
<p>He's—</p>
<p>Not sure.</p>
<p>"I don't know," Aang whispers.</p>
<p>She doesn't ask again.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>"Is that—" Sokka falters, and Aang can't blame him, gaping as he is himself.</p>
<p>The girl, whose brown hair is a few inches shorter than Aang remembers it being and who's definitely wearing an old prison uniform that's been quite obviously altered, tilts her head at him, blinking. Her companion, wearing the same thing but far less stylized and personalized, with hair in her usual style but pulled back into a low ponytail, raises an eyebrow, the epitome of unimpressed.</p>
<p>"Cutie?" The girl with the braid asks, at the same time the other one says monotonously, "Oh great, ponytail guy."</p>
<p>Sokka sputters.</p>
<p>Aang smiles, just a little.</p>
<p>And though he'll deny it, Zuko starts to cry.</p>
<p>They weren't exactly looking for them, but here they are.</p>
<p>Because that's <em>definitely</em>—</p>
<p>Mai and Ty Lee.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>They come here, on nobody's land at the end of the world, and it feels like trespassing.</p>
<p>This land is not of the Fire Nation, not of the Water Tribes, not of the Air Nomads nor any small part of the massive Earth Kingdom.</p>
<p>This is the space of the ancients, and nobody else.</p>
<p>Aang's not afraid to admit that he's scared of this place.</p>
<p>The Swamp is one of the few <em>places</em> he's been in that's really stuck with him itself, haunted him, second only to places like the Spirit Oasis and Koh's Cave and the Crystal Catacombs and the Caldera, and even then he's not really sure that those spots alone beat out the Swamp in terms of eeriness or creep-factor.</p>
<p>The others all had people, things, events tied to them.</p>
<p>The Swamp was an entity entirely on its own. The Swamp was one of the few places that they never really got all their answers for. The Swamp is the place that without even entering drew him into a trance so deep he almost landed them there without even realizing it. The Swamp is the place a tornado swept out of literally nowhere and forcibly grounded them the second he snapped out of it and turned them around. The Swamp is the place they went to sleep back-to-back and woke up scattered leagues away from each other. The Swamp is where vines act even beyond Huu's control and birds scream like people in distress and visions of one's past, present, and future show up to confuse and give false hope and mess with your head.</p>
<p>The Swamp is not a place he likes to think about.</p>
<p>"This is where I first met you, y'know," he tells Toph.</p>
<p>She tilts her head, a childish sort of gesture. It takes a moment after that thought passes to remember why that's wrong. (She's <em>supposed</em> to use childish gestures. Because she's still a kid, isn't she? <em>Aang</em> is still a kid, and she's younger than him, and sometimes he forgets these things, especially now, <em>spirits</em>—)</p>
<p>"Uh, sorry Twinkle Toes, but I don't think I've ever been to a swamp before. And I'm <em>pretty</em> sure that the first place <em>I</em> met <em>you</em> was at the Earth Rumble Tournament."</p>
<p>And—right.</p>
<p>None of them had really told the others about the Swamp, had they?</p>
<p>And. Yeah. Earth Rumble Six.</p>
<p>He forgets about that, a lot.</p>
<p>(He forgets about too many things, these days.)</p>
<p>He's been so many places and done so many things and seen so many people that at times they blur together beyond recognition.</p>
<p>A part of him wonders if Toph forgets about it, too.</p>
<p>He doesn't think so.</p>
<p>For a really long time, those tournaments had been her escape, her training, her entertainment and her salvation.</p>
<p>And—maybe Toph didn't see it, but he'd watched the way The Boulder and Hippo had acted around her when they'd been reunited at the Invasion.</p>
<p>They'd seemed... relieved. Guilty, ashamed.</p>
<p>Affectionate.</p>
<p>They'd treated her kind of like Hakoda treated Sokka and Katara, but more indulgent and swaddled in the guise of banter and tough personas and big talk.</p>
<p>They'd acted like she was their daughter, or something.</p>
<p>She's talked about it, a little, but not that part of it. She's told him that they'd meet sometimes, in the locker and waiting rooms, the viewing areas, the entrance chambers, when they came in and left the tournaments, when they were waiting for their matches to start. She came and left as quickly as she could, every time, tried to keep information about her from getting out and the likelihood of the guards or servants at the Beifong estate noticing her absence to a minimum, but she was never completely isolated from the other competitors.</p>
<p>They'd thought it was funny at first, that this little girl was competing, but she'd earned her place soon enough. Then they'd all been kind of awkward and apprehensive for a little bit, but eventually the regulars in the circuit all worked their way up to casual, easy conversation with her when they crossed paths.</p>
<p>She always has a little smile on her face when she talks about how sometimes they'd share their food with her, that the first time she'd ever had street food was when The Gopher brought mantou before a qualifier match, and just happened to have an extra for her, or how Headhunter and The Gecko had always held her back before she left, wrapping her injuries before she learned how to do it herself, even when they were the cause of those injuries, tutting over her and how she needed to learn how to take better care of herself, how Fire Nation Man had taken her aside in her early days and made sure to teach her how to take a fall, how to take a dive, how to turn both into something a hell of a lot less painful and likely to cause damage, told her that he knew a lot about how to fall, and that hopefully she wouldn't, but that the knowledge was always valuable. She'd confessed that she thinks they were something like her first friends.</p>
<p>He wonders if she even realizes that these probably aren't exactly things they all do for each other, but that it seems like they'd all grown to see Toph as their kid to protect and dote on, that they'd respected her, that that had made the perceived betrayal of her cheating that much worse, and that they went after her the way they did because they knew that she could take it, and seen it as something akin to a parent grounding their child or giving them extra chores.</p>
<p>Aang has a hunch that grows with each piece of information she lets slip, that during the whole dramatic showdown after they met, either there was a <em>lot</em> more manipulation for the competitors in the situation than any of them were aware of, or that once more of the situation had pieced itself together a bit, the end goal of the whole endeavor gained a secondary objective, and part of the whole ordeal was that they were trying to get Toph's parents to see what she was really capable of, and maybe give her the push to either stand up for herself or get out of that house where she was being stifled at her core. (Aang knows Toph and—she can lie, she can act with the best of them, of course she can do <em>subtle</em>. She's just... not always quite as subtle as she seems to <em>think</em> she is.)</p>
<p>He wonders if she misses them like she's quietly confessed before that she misses her parents, wonders if she misses them like he misses Kuzon and Gyatso and everyone else, like Sokka and Katara miss Hakoda and Gran-Gran, like Zuko misses Iroh, or Teo misses The Mechanist or Haru misses Tyro and Gono or Smellerbee and Longshot miss Jet or The Duke misses Pipsqueak.</p>
<p>He thinks he would, if he were her.</p>
<p>But Toph doesn't like admitting connection, and she doesn't like people thinking that she can't take care of herself, so he doesn't point it out or ask any further.</p>
<p>Maybe one day he will, when the wounds aren't as fresh.</p>
<p>One day.</p>
<p>Not today.</p>
<p>For now—</p>
<p>"No, it was... a... vision, or something. One of the swampbenders we met said that the Swamp shows them to people. He said that it shows them people they loved, or lost, or were important to them in some way. That's... actually part of how we found you, after the tournament. I realized that I'd never met you before, so it must be someone that I was going to meet in the future. And—well, I recognized your laugh at the tournament, and you had a flying boar with you in the vision, and—"</p>
<p>"Yeah, flying boar is the symbol of the Beifongs," she grumbles, the response sounding route, but also tinged with nostalgia and longing.</p>
<p>(As great as this new one is, he's not the only one who misses his old family.)</p>
<p>"Exactly."</p>
<p>"So... what did you two see?" She asks, gesturing vaguely in the direction she'd felt Sokka and Katara when they'd clambered on Appa's back first.</p>
<p>Katara purses her lips, looking away from them toward the horizon, and Sokka's gaze turns the same way, face tightening.</p>
<p>"Our mom," Katara says shortly, and leaves it at that. Their mother had passed many years ago, and Katara had gotten something like closure when she and Zuko had gone on that 'life-changing field-trip,' but they still didn't exactly enjoy discussing the topic, and he thinks it's only gotten harder since they were separated from Hakoda, and especially after stopping by the old Southern Water Tribe. (Aang also notes, as he always has, that though Katara and Sokka had had a long discussion after her and Zuko's journey, during which she'd apparently apologized—he hadn't been privy to that conversation, and he hadn't wanted to be, it was private for a reason, but that meant he didn't exactly know all the details—more than once and rather profusely for what she'd said to him before the pair had left, and he had forgiven her, Sokka hadn't gotten any of the same closure. And, maybe he didn't need to, but none of them can really know that. And now, he might never get the chance.)</p>
<p>"Yue," Sokka adds after a short, tense silence.</p>
<p>Haru lays a hand on his shoulder in silent support.</p>
<p>Yue was just a kid, too, and it's a painful thing to remember.</p>
<p>Yue was fifteen. Yue was barely older than Katara. Yue never got a chance at life.</p>
<p>Yue was <em>fifteen</em>. Yue was engaged. Yue died for her people without a second thought.</p>
<p>(Aang wonders if he could've done the same.</p>
<p>But any chance at that passed a long, long time ago, with a storm and an iceberg and a hundred years.)</p>
<p>Yue was, if nothing else, a friend.</p>
<p>She showed them around the city. She lent Katara support when they were alone, in the little time before the latter snapped and challenged Pakku. She thought Aang's marble tricks were cool. She laughed at Sokka's jokes. Aang remembers her confessing to them that she's always wanted to see actual sand, not the gritty mixture of slush and gravel and ice on their shores, and fields of wildflowers. He remembers Sokka and Katara eagerly discussing with her the differences in their Tribes and cultures, telling her about their travels, and how different things were everywhere else from both of the Poles.</p>
<p>He can distinctly recall excited rambling about <em>they have night and day all year 'round it’s so strange</em> and <em>barely anyone even knows what midnight sun madness is, can you believe that?</em> and <em>they have buildings that don't melt! But they're made of so many different things and some of them have colors and gardens even how cool is that</em> and <em>they have all these different spices so their food tastes kind of weird but in a good way? </em>and <em>it's not supposed be this bright at this time of year, what hemisphere are you even in? ...Oh, right</em> and <em>so. Hot.</em> and <em>they have fruit so often? And it's so cheap!</em> and <em>yeah, but we haven't found anything quite as good as sea prune stew yet. It's like people in the Earth Kingdom don't even know what salt is</em>.</p>
<p>And maybe she loved Sokka, and maybe Sokka loved her. But they were just teenagers, still are, and only knew each other for a few weeks. They didn't have the time to figure anything like that out.</p>
<p>(They never even stood a chance.)</p>
<p>Yue was counting on him.</p>
<p><em>But you have to. You're the Avatar</em>.</p>
<p>She'd said that like it was <em>important</em>.</p>
<p>She'd said it like <em>Avatar</em> meant <em>answers</em>, meant <em>savior</em>, meant <em>salvation</em>.</p>
<p>She'd breathed it like a hopeless prayer and it had <em>terrified</em> him.</p>
<p>She had begged him to save her home, her country, her family, her people. And what had he said?</p>
<p><em>I'm just one kid</em>.</p>
<p>As if that was an excuse.</p>
<p>Aang's just one kid, but he's also a hundred kids, a thousand adults, a million lost lives in the making, the legacy of centuries, an enormous collection of knowledge and power and training amassed from countless eras and countless places around the globe.</p>
<p>
  <em>I'm just one kid.</em>
</p>
<p>He'd told her that as if for that reason he couldn't save them.</p>
<p>And yet—</p>
<p>Yue had stood—</p>
<p>She hadn't even hesitated—</p>
<p>Just like that—</p>
<p>And—</p>
<p>Aang's just one kid, but so was Yue.</p>
<p>And Yue had managed to save them all, like he hadn't.</p>
<p>Yue had saved lives.</p>
<p>That day, he'd just taken them.</p>
<p>And he knows it wasn't exactly <em>him</em>, that it was La, that the ocean spirit was <em>angry</em> and <em>hurting</em> and <em>furious</em> and <em>who are these humans who dare to touch Tui who dares presume to separate us who dares who dares <strong>who dares</strong>—</em></p>
<p>But that doesn't change the fact that it was his body landing each and every killing blow.</p>
<p>
  <em>Yue was, Yue was, Yue was.</em>
</p>
<p>Yue <em>is</em> dead, Yue <em>is</em> gone, Yue <em>is</em> a hero.</p>
<p>(Yue is just a name that very few people ever knew as synonymous with that last word, and a spirit Aang is scared to tell Sokka he's seen for <em>precisely this reason</em>—)</p>
<p>But.</p>
<p>Sokka and Yue were the closest of them.</p>
<p>Ignoring any would-be maybe-romance, ignoring time, that was the fact of the matter.</p>
<p>Because Sokka wasn't just one of the first real friends Yue had met, Yue was one of the first real friends Sokka had met, too. Before her, the only kids near his age he really had that he'd ever connected with or even had the chance to were Katara, Aang, and Teo—and the former two were notably younger than him, while the third he was only able to speak to for a couple of days.</p>
<p>They'd made an undeniable <em>impact</em> on each other, short though their friendship was.</p>
<p>(But they'd made a far more undeniable impact on the <em>world</em>, too.)</p>
<p>(The Duke starts to ask who Yue is. Suki shakes her head and wraps an arm around him, and his mouth snaps closed.)</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>"Woah," Toph breathes as soon as her feet touch the ground. "This—"</p>
<p>She swallows.</p>
<p>"It even <em>feels</em> creepy, doesn't it?" Katara mutters derisively, glaring at the vines hanging around them.</p>
<p>"No, that's not—" Toph lets out a shaky breath, and Aang starts to feel a little concerned. He's not sure he's ever seen her this off-balance before. "I've never felt anything like this before," she says, but she doesn't sound scared or off-put when she does. She sounds almost... emotional? But in a good way.</p>
<p>They turn to her in confusion, because their newer companions are starting to get that she'll realize they're looking for answers quicker if they physically react, but before anyone can voice the question they're all wondering, she whispers, almost reverently in a way Aang's never heard from her before, "I can see... <em>everything</em>."</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>"We can set up a watch," The Duke proposes, voice too young to be thinking about things like that, like guarding people so they don't die in their sleep.</p>
<p>"We'll take it in shifts," Smellerbee nods decisively, as if she was expecting the suggestion, was used to it. It's times like this that her days as Jet's shadow shines through. "Two people each, three hours."</p>
<p>"Is that how you did things with the Freedom Fighters?" Suki asks them, head tilting to the side. She'd never had a chance to see the way the group operated.</p>
<p>Smellerbee's lips thin. The Duke looks down. Longshot is as stoic as ever.</p>
<p>None of them answer her.</p>
<p>She nods as though they did, anyway.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>A bird screams.</p>
<p>Aang forgot how much he hated those birds.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>For the record, Aang still hates the Swamp.</p>
<p>But he's more used to it now—they all are—and no one's had any uncomfortable visions yet.</p>
<p>Plus, there's plenty of water that he and Katara can purify pretty easily, and Teo's having a lot of fun figuring out how to maneuver his wheelchair down giant roots and glide between all the hanging vines, and there's enough earth that Haru can keep busy, and there are a lot of little hidey-holes for The Duke to explore, and places for Mai and Longshot to practice their aim and have silent, slightly passive-aggressive competitions, and the wide, flat expanses of the enormous roots give plenty of space for Zuko and Smellerbee and Sokka to spar, and there's plenty of fuel for fires, now that Sokka is <em>extremely aware</em> of where he's taking it from and a lot more respectful about it than the first time around, and they can see the moon and sun still from where they set up camp at the big tree in the middle, and Appa can still fly pretty easy and not have to worry about getting tangled in vines from there, and no one's going to bother them here and if they do they'll know their way around, and have easy access to the sky, and see them coming before they get close, and it's practically a playground for Ty Lee, and Toph can apparently see for miles and miles and miles and—</p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p>Somehow, at some point, it was decided that they were staying in the Swamp.</p>
<p>Indefinitely.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Smellerbee and Longshot are trying to teach the Fire Nation kids how to start a fire (without bending for Zuko), which is really irony at its finest on so many levels, but it's a necessary skill for them now and somehow, despite all the traveling they've done, even when incognito or not exactly living in luxury while doing so, none of them have ever learned how before.</p>
<p>It's times like this that Aang really wonders what exactly he doesn't know about the others' lives, what he missed, what they've never talked about—the big things, and the small.</p>
<p>Like, how The Duke seemed to take on Pipsqueak as his guardian. (Were they related? Was Pipsqueak his father? Cousin? Uncle? Brother? Were they family friends, or neighbors? Or did Pipsqueak just happen across The Duke one day and take him in? How did that happen? How old was The Duke? How old is The Duke <em>now</em>?)</p>
<p>(He had <em>friends</em> before the iceberg, <em>little kids</em>, seventeen, nine, twelve, eight, fifteen, six, <em>and they're all gone now they're all dead</em><em>.)</em></p>
<p>Or, why was the leader of Kyoshi Island's main defense a teenage girl? (Come to think of it, did they even see any adult women at all while they were at Kyoshi? How many adults did they see, period? How "neutral" were they, for how long? How many other ways can a population be devastated?)</p>
<p>(They found only Gyatso, didn't dare to look further. Did Teo's people find more bodies in their stolen temple? Did Guru Patik? Did the others find them at the Western Air Temple, and carefully steer him away from them? Hide them from him, to spare him the pain? And Gyatso <em>killed</em> people, didn't he, because there were a lot more bodies than just him, and they were all wearing red armor. <em>Aang's</em> killed people, but it's one thing for him to do it and another for <em>Gyatso</em> to do it because Gyatso is so much more experienced, so much more in tune with his spiritual side, knows so much more and is so much <em>better</em> and <em>he's</em> not supposed to compromise their morals, but Yang-Chen told Aang that for <em>him</em> it was unavoidable, or she might as well have—)</p>
<p>Where are Smellerbee and Longshot and The Duke even from? What compelled them to join the Freedom Fighters? (Jet said his village burned, mentioned something about the Rough Rhinos. Did their villages burn, too? Did their parents? Or were they better off on their own in the woods than they would have been in their own homes? A lot of Earth Kingdom towns didn't seem to take too well to mixed-heritage kids these days, not like they did when Aang was a kid the first time around, and he thinks with a sick feeling in his stomach that maybe there's a <em>reason</em> for that. He eyes Longshot's pale skin, his dark, dark hair, his eyes that almost look—)</p>
<p>(Kuzon was mixed, wasn't he? Mostly of Fire Nation descent, but his Grandmother was from a smaller, further out branch of the Northern Water Tribe, because smaller, further out branches of the Water Tribes were common back then and he's not even sure if they exist now, and his mother was a proud citizen of Ba Sing Se, and his brother-in-law was from a port city in the Earth Kingdom that Aang always forgets the name of because Kuzon always did, too.)</p>
<p>What are the names of Ty Lee's sisters? (She never talks about them, at all. Does she really hate them? Never want to see them again? Or does she just hate the <em>idea</em> of them, just hate that she wasn't allowed an identity <em>apart</em> from them? Does she ever regret that, now? Would she be happy to see them alive and well again, even if it meant risking her own individuality?)</p>
<p>(Hadn't Bumi asked him once, so long ago, if Aang ever struggled with being his own person amongst the air nomads? Aang had said no, he thinks, but now he's sure he'd give up every ounce of personality and every unique thing about him if it brought the rest of the air nomads back.)</p>
<p>Does Mai miss Tom-Tom at all? (He's—what—thirteen years younger than her? Fourteen? That would've been hard on anyone. And Aang had seen her parents when he'd returned Tom-Tom. They'd been so <em>happy</em>, so <em>relieved</em>, and he wonders if Mai ever got that from them, even at that age. Zuko had told them, before they found her, that she had, reluctantly, loved the kid, in her own way. He says that he'd been given the run-down of everything that happened on that trip to Omashu, and that the only reasons she called off the negotiations were because she didn't believe they'd have enough will or lack of conscience to actually harm Tom-Tom at all, and because Azula had ordered it, and going against her might've ended up so much worse for her <em>and </em>Tom-Tom, and everyone else, too.)</p>
<p>(Zuko had mentioned something about a hierarchy. Aang wonders how hers stacks up now.)</p>
<p>Where did Teo's people vacate <em>from</em> exactly? Where was their town, before it was wiped off the map? Why and how did they come to choose the Northern Air Temple as the next place to go? It's not exactly in the way of any oft-tread paths, or easy to access. (How many tries did it take to get there? How many people were sacrificed in the dangerous journey for non-airbenders and non-bison riders? In the endeavor for gliders even they could use? Three wooden fingers, who fitted them in? Who had to walk into the Mechanist's workshop and see the blood, try to figure out how to fix it, perform the surgery? How singed had his eyebrows been, how many close calls did that equate to? Teo's almost Sokka's age, but he's still just a kid, just like the rest of them, and how many times was he terrified that his father had killed or fatally injured himself in the quest for progress? The Mechanist made no secret that he did this all for his kid, how much of all that did Teo blame <em>himself</em> for?)</p>
<p>(Aang blames himself. For all of it. He tries not to, but he does.)</p>
<p>How did Zuko get his scar? (He doesn't like to talk about it, and they're all too scared to ask. But from the absentminded way he touches it sometimes when they talk about Ozai, or their parents, and the uncomfortable glances Mai and Ty Lee sometimes shoot him when they do, he doesn't like the picture being painted. Those are some of the only times that he will, quietly, in some deep, dark place within him, admit, if only to himself, that he's glad that Ozai is dead.)</p>
<p>(It makes him sick to his stomach. Because the thought of <em>Gyatso</em> doing something like—</p>
<p>He's the closest thing Aang thinks he's had to a paternal figure, and Gyatso would<em> never</em> hurt him. Gyatso would sooner have thrown himself from the tallest tower in the temple, straight off the side of the mountain, and <em>let himself</em> fall than intentionally hurt Aang.)</p>
<p>What happened when Haru's father got arrested, what lead to that? How long did they have him on that prison rig? (He'd amassed such a following, asserted himself as the leader seemingly without even meaning to and without even trying. They <em>respected</em> him, in a way he'd seen very few people command it. That respect doesn't come overnight, from nowhere, and it doesn't come without cost. What else did it cost their family, besides valuable, valuable time?)</p>
<p>(Spirits, does Aang wish that he had had more time.)</p>
<p>How old were Sokka and Katara during the raid that took their mother? (From what he can tell, there were years between that and the time Hakoda left. Were there more? How many did it take before they finally said enough is enough? If there were more, how on earth did they trust that their village would be safe in their absence? How vividly do they remember it? Were they hurt? Was it almost them instead of her? How many other people died? How terrified were they of their home being invaded again, for how long? Were they there? Did they <em>see</em>—)</p>
<p>(Aang thinks he could've suffered seeing, could've survived the knowledge of the <em>who</em> and the <em>how</em> and the <em>what</em>, even if that knowledge had shattered him to the core, even if he had died for it, because of it, if only he could've helped his people even the slightest bit.)</p>
<p>Aang wonders, but doesn't ask. Aang wonders, but tries to stop. Aang wonders. He wonders and wonders and wonders.</p>
<p>And the possibilities scare him beyond nearly anything else.</p>
<p>So he does his best to stop wondering.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>"I've never seen a sky bison before Appa," The Duke says. He's using that voice children often use when they're trying to be quiet but are just a little too excited to do so.</p>
<p>"There aren't many of them anymore," Ty Lee says back, just as quietly. "Most people think that they're extinct. They mostly live in the wilds and the mountains, far away from people."</p>
<p>"He's <em>so pretty</em>," The Duke tells her earnestly.</p>
<p>"I know," the acrobat answers, a smile in her voice. "And it's almost spring. Do you know what'll happen then?"</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"He'll get a new coat. It'll be so fresh and soft and clean, and he'll be really happy about it, too, I'll bet. He'll shed a lot, first, though. I'm thinking maybe we can take the extra fur and see if there's any way we can make thread out of it, or blankets."</p>
<p>"<em>Wow</em>," The Duke breathes, and Aang tries to imagine the awed look on his little face. It's not a reaction they get from him often. "How do you know so much about animals?"</p>
<p>"Well, I used to travel with a circus. They had a lot of animals there. Not all circuses are kind to their animals, but mine was. I considered a lot of them my friends."</p>
<p>"That's so cool! Have you ever seen a giant saber-toothed moose lion?"</p>
<p>"No, but one year they <em>did</em> have this really big swallowtail-lynx that—"</p>
<p>Aang falls back asleep with a smile on his face, their soft voices lulling him into the land of dreams.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Spring comes.</p>
<p>Aang’s starting to get used to the screaming birds, and isn’t woken up or put on edge every time he hears one.</p>
<p>Haru has bent furniture for them, more detailed and of finer craftsmanship than in the past when he's made some for their longer-lasting campsites. Toph has been teaching him to become more in tune with the earth, sensing further, really feeling and seeing with it as an extension of himself, rather than just a tool to use.</p>
<p>Ty Lee and Teo have actually managed to find a way to successfully use Appa's fur to make thread.</p>
<p>Katara has started trying to bend the water in the vines. She says it feels a lot different, than bending flowers, which are really the only plants she's tried so far, and when Aang tries, he can see what she means. There's so many lines to follow, going so far in so many different directions at once that it feels impossible to try to coerce them into moving one way or another, and not in the same way that the ocean is hard to guide. He really wonders how Huu did it so easily, in such a complex manner.</p>
<p>(It doesn't look like the Swamp has been touched. He has to wonder, then, what happened to all the people who lived there.)</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Smellerbee accidentally cuts herself during a spar.</p>
<p>Instead of applying her usual methods to try to stop the bleeding before healing it, Katara takes a deep, deep breath, and slowly, the blood starts to reverse its flow. Another breath, and what's left at the split in the skin starts to clot. She goes to get her water pouch to finish healing it, and everyone stares.</p>
<p>Aang feels something in his chest flutter a little bit.</p>
<p>It feels like pride.</p>
<p>She took the tool forced upon her, the one meant to take away control, to hurt, and turned it into her own, figured out how to use it to <em>heal</em> instead.</p>
<p><em>Take that, Hama</em>.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Summer comes.</p>
<p>"You know," Sokka tells him contemplatively, "I know they were kind of weird guys, and we hardly knew them, but it kind of feels good to be living where the swamp people did, you know?"</p>
<p>Aang does know, kind of, but he suspects he doesn't <em>know</em> quite like the Water Tribe siblings do. He's been wondering for months now, if that was part of the reason they chose to stay here—if it was because <em>t</em><em>hat means we're kin</em>. He's been wondering if they wanted to learn more about the swamp inhabitants, that extension of their culture, if they saw this as a way to stay connected to their own heritage without sitting next to a festering wound, so to speak.</p>
<p>He's glad one of them said as much, even just a little bit.</p>
<p>He's pretty sure that's supposed to mean progress.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>He finally hits the target Mai pointed out for him with a knife, no bending involved at all.</p>
<p>The older girl looks at him, gaze frigidly neutral as always, arms crossed.</p>
<p>"...You're not so bad, kid," she admits gruffly.</p>
<p>Aang beams. Mai looks away.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Sokka gets bored at some point and starts using mud to draw on rocks and trees.</p>
<p>Teo stares at his creations, muttering something along the lines of, "I think I get what Dad meant now..."</p>
<p>But when he speaks up, he says, "Sokka, these are great!" And he sounds sincere.</p>
<p>Sokka's mouth falls open, eyes wide.</p>
<p>"...You really think so?"</p>
<p>And. Alright. Aang feels guilty about how disbelieving Sokka sounds.</p>
<p>Yeah, maybe the guy wasn't exactly the greatest artist, and they'd poked at him for it more than once, but it was always in good fun. He hadn't meant to hurt Sokka's feelings, and he'd never really said anything about it to them, so he'd assumed it was okay.</p>
<p>(He can't recall any of them complimenting his art skills before.</p>
<p>Other things, yes, but not that particular hobby of his.</p>
<p>And that's—not a great ephiphany.)</p>
<p>Teo nods.</p>
<p>"Really?" Sokka asks again, and he sounds strangely...vulnerable.</p>
<p>Aang had never really considered that his art had meant so much to him.</p>
<p>"I'm kind of just making it up as I go along... It was pretty hard to get paper down South, so we saved it for more important things. And snow isn't really the easiest thing to draw in, y'know?"</p>
<p>Teo nods again.</p>
<p>Right. Northern Air Temple. He'd been in a pretty cold area, too.</p>
<p>"You know, my dad always made blueprints for his designs? He taught me a lot about how to draw. I can teach you if you want."</p>
<p>"You would... do that?"</p>
<p>Another nod.</p>
<p>Sokka envelops Teo in a hug.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Fall comes.</p>
<p>Suki and Ty Lee have finally gotten around to trading techniques. Aang is mildly concerned whenever he sees them sparring.</p>
<p>Longshot and Katara have worked out a schedule for when they'll go out together to hunt and find food.</p>
<p>It works well because he's a longer range fighter and she's a bit closer range, so they can defend themselves against most potential threats, though there aren't many these days, because the animals of the Swamp are all pretty used to them by now.</p>
<p>They can also clear areas a lot quicker, not having to worry about finding alternative routes to where they want to go if they run into a thicket of trees too dense (Longshot can climb and help them navigate through it), or they're cut off by water (because Katara can help them cross).</p>
<p>Longshot gets to do some archery, and helps Katara with learning to identify plants she's unfamiliar with, which is an area he's surprisingly knowledgable about.</p>
<p>Together they can get a good amount of food to bring back, and are starting up a steady store for winter, because they're not quite sure what that's like in the Swamp, and they're too settled in for any of them to really want to go anywhere else.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Smellerbee... doesn't have her warpaint on.</p>
<p>And Suki... does?</p>
<p>Specifically, she's coaching Smellerbee through how to apply the Kyoshi Warrior makeup, using her own face as practice.</p>
<p>How or when she even <em>got</em> Kyoshi Warrior makeup, Aang has legitimately no idea.</p>
<p>And.</p>
<p>Smellerbee has a knife pressed to Suki's face, near her eye, using the edge for guidance in lines of red, white and black, her tongue poking out and brows furrowed in concentration.</p>
<p>Suki looks like the only reason she's not grinning is because it would mess Smellerbee up.</p>
<p>"What is going on?" Haru mutters.</p>
<p>"I don't know," Katara replies.</p>
<p>"I think they're bonding," Ty Lee whispers back chipperly.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Winter comes.</p>
<p>The Appa blankets do come in handy, but they all still sleep in a pile together huddled up against the bison and around Zuko and Aang (who naturally run warmer as firebenders), anyway.</p>
<p>"Stop putting your freezing toes under my thighs, you gremlin," Mai hisses at Toph.</p>
<p>"Teo, <em>please</em> stop draping your arm over my face at night," Zuko pleads.</p>
<p>"Haru, Suki, can you not trap me when we go to sleep? I know I'm small. I will... <em>allow</em> cuddles. To a degree. But I would very much like to still be able to move," The Duke sniffs.</p>
<p>(Aang knows they all secretly love it.)</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Spring comes again.</p>
<p>Then summer.</p>
<p>Then fall.</p>
<p>Then winter.</p>
<p>Somehow, against all odds, they're okay.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>- Haru’s mom does not have a name, at least that's mentioned in the show or that I could find online (haven't finished the comics but I kind of doubt she's in them unfortunately :/  ) so I used the name "Gono" for her? I know that's both a given name and a surname, and not very popular as the former, but I liked it for her.</p>
<p>- I don't think Ty Lee and Mai really learned most of the Gaang's names during canon? so yeah I had them refer to Sokka as "cutie" and "ponytail guy" in their heads, or at least when they meet. "cutie" because that's what Ty Lee called him in Ba Sing Se, and "ponytail guy" because that seems suitably dry enough for Mai while also like she's kind of making fun of him, and as Katara pointed out, it's not exactly inaccurate? also I find the idea of Sokka's nicknames for others being turned on him hilarious so</p>
<p>- hi yes hello it’s very important to me that you know that the earth rumble six members have absolutely adopted Toph without her knowledge. they’re her dads now. except Xin Fu he can rot xo &lt;3</p>
<p>- listen, I absolutely <em>love</em> Bumi. he’s not necessarily one of my favorite characters, but that’s literally only because I have so many of them, because it’s <em>atla</em>. but when you think about everything that happened through the eyes of someone living in Omashu at the time? it’s kind of hard to think of his actions in an entirely positive light, even if you can understand why he did them.</p>
<p>- I would die for mai &amp; aang’s friendship</p>
<p> <br/><a href="https://ink-beneath-her-fingernails.tumblr.com/">come yell at me on tumblr :)</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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